The development of computerized information sources, such as those provided through the Internet or other on-line sources, has led to a proliferation of electronically available information. Currently, a user who subscribes to the Internet manually navigates through the Internet to visit sites which may or may not be of interest.
An inherent problem in this Internet system is that the available information is distributed through a "pull" type infrastructure, where the user who wants to receive information must manually search sites of interest, or use a finder application, to search and download appropriate information. For a user who wishes to publish and distribute information or documents, either an individual or a larger entity that has information that is desired to be distributed, the present "pull" system doesn't allow the freedom to send and distribute to a recipient or group of recipients, in a "push" fashion.
Facsimile technology is widely used at the present time for the distribution of simple documents, but has numerous drawbacks, including lower quality printed documents, costly and bulky paper copies (particularly if the recipient doesn't care to have a paper copy), loss of content (e.g. text and graphics can't be edited or manipulated), and time requirements for transmission, particularly for long or complex documents.
Electronic Mail (E-mail) provides a means for sending electronic messages from computer user to another. E-mail has advantages of convenience, format and storage of messages for later retrieval. As such, E-mail has been accepted and widely used for basic communication. E-mail is typically an ASCII based format, however, and proves to be very limiting for the communication of long or formatted documents. As well, E-mail is not the medium of choice for the distribution of complex documents, such as reports, articles, advertisements and art which can include page layout grids, postscript-formatted objects, multiple fonts with tracking and kerning, graphics, imbedded tables and spreadsheets, and other complicated information. Some E-mail systems provide a means for appending an ASCII based E-mail message with an associated file, to be downloaded along with the E-mail message. Most systems that allow the appending of an associated file are designed to allow a single user to send unsecured files to an associate or friend, and neither allow for controlled automated distribution to multiple recipients, nor do they provide advanced accounting, billing or other such features (e.g., receipt notification). E-mail gateways also limit the applicability of attachments, and do not solve the problems of security and receipt notation or acknowledgment.
C. Baudoin, Interenterprise Electronic Mail Hub, U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,557 (Apr. 11, 1995) discloses an interenterprise communications center, which has a computer hub comprising a common core and a plurality of input and output modules. The input modules connect to a first end user, and convert a message sent by the first end user into a universal format. The hub core queues the message and forwards it to the output module for conversion into the format of the destination user. While the disclosed hub discloses techniques to relay simple e-mail messages, it is designed to convert the e-mail message formats, thus losing the integrity of the original text-based file.
The disclosed prior art systems and methodologies thus provide some methods for the delivery of documents, but fail to provide an economical, fast document delivery system that operates in a push-fashion, while conserving the integrity of the original electronic file. The development of such an electronic document delivery system would constitute a major technological advance. In addition, the ability to distribute electronic portable high content-quality documents to many recipients in a controlled, economical and accountable fashion would constitute a further technological advance.